A big thanks is extended to the two volunteer organizations listed above for their generosity in conducting several "in-person" severe weather spottter classes!Click on their name to navigate to their web sites.

Why you should attend a severe weather spotter class...even if you don't want to be a spotter!

* If you are a first-responder, you deal with public safety issues. Severe weather events, such as tornadoes, flash floods, and powerful thunderstorm downburst winds, are a public safety issue. Why not learn how to anticipate and identify severe weather before it starts? Knowledge will never hurt anyone!

* If you have participated as a severe weather spotter for your agency or jurisdiction and/or relayed a severe weather report to your 911 Comms Center, but have never attended a spotter class, are you confident that you will be, or were, 100% correct in identifying the event you will, or did, experience?

* Did you know that there are cloud features that foretell the development of a tornado or a powerful thunderstorm downburst wind event? Wouldn't it be neat to be able to recognize those cloud features? Your timely information could lead to an earlier tornado warning and potentially save lives! Now, how can you beat that?

* Did you know that a tornado can occur but never have a visible funnel cloud associated with it? In other words, the visible funnel cloud isn't the tornado, and a tornado can develop before there is a visible funnel cloud. So you need to learn what a tornado and funnel cloud really are! If all of this is confusing, then you need to attend a severe weather spotter class!

* Last, but not least, severe weather spotters provide ground and cloud base information that can't be detected by the National Weather Service's (NWS) WSR-88D Doppler Radar system. The earth's curvature and a straight radar beam limit the ability of Doppler Radar to detect things below cloud base the greater the distance from the radar location. Spotters become "field eyes" for the NWS, verifying what the radar sees or does not see!

On-line National SKYWARN Spotter Training Courses

Please read informatiion found in this archived Top News of the Day story.